Zarnuqa

Angelina Dagot

06/08/2006

Final Report

During August 2002 a trial excavation was conducted at the corner of Sheshet Ha-Yamim and Yom Kippur Streets in the Qiryat Moshe neighborhood in west Rehovot, at the Zarnuqa site (Permit No. A-3698*; map ref. NIG 180068–89/643105–45; OIG 130068–89/143105–45), after antiquities were damaged during the installation of a pipe. The excavation, on behalf of the Antiquities Authority and financed by the Electric Company, was directed by A. Dagot, assisted by V.Pirsky (surveying) and E. Yannai (field photography).

Two squares, 16 m apart (Fig. 1), along a trench that was dug during the course of infrastructure work, were opened.

Square 1 (2 × 4 m). A modern concrete wall (W102), oriented north–south, was exposed in the western part of the square. Two coins, dating to 1950 when the Zarnuqa immigrant camp was established there, were discovered in the wall’s foundation trench. A wall (W105) built of two rows of fieldstones (average dimensions 0.15 × 0.20 m) was exposed in the eastern part of the square, at a depth of 0.8 m below surface. Wall 105, oriented north–south, was preserved a single course high (0.4 m) and 1.5 m long. Non-diagnostic potsherds were retrieved from the fill of the wall. After removing a brown hamra fill layer (thickness 0.3 m), a floor (L107; thickness 0.1 m) of small fieldstones was exposed east of W105, at a depth of 1.15 m below surface. A few body sherds of jars from the Byzantine and Early Islamic periods were found above the floor.

Square II (2.0 × 3.5 m). A floor (L108; thickness 0.1 m) of small kurkar stones was exposed in the western part of the square, 0.1 m below surface. A few non-diagnostic potsherds were collected above the floor.

Floor 107 probably belonged to the Byzantine site that was exposed by A. Mettens in the Qiryat Moshe neighborhood (HA-ESI 114:71*); the rest of the architectural remains in the two squares should be ascribed to the abandoned Arab village of Zarnuqa and the immigrant camp named after it.